


The War is Over (It's Only Just Begun)

by ToTheStarsWriting



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Depression, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt Eliot Waugh, Hurt Quentin Coldwater, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Nice Penny, No Qualice, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, PTSD, Penny isn't a dick, Protective Penny, Season 4 AU, The Monster - Freeform, Wounds, if continued, never happened, not entirely, surprisingly, they decided to be friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 12:16:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18620458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToTheStarsWriting/pseuds/ToTheStarsWriting
Summary: Quentin's been fighting for such a long time, he doesn't know how to exist anymore without it. Without a mission to keep him going. He's finally done what he set out to do - he's saved Eliot. But the thing about clinging so tightly to something is that, once it’s gone, what’s left there to hold you up? What’s left to keep you going when the only thing solid is yanked away?





	1. Chapter 1

For months now there had only been one thing that was keeping Quentin going. One thing that had made every moment at the Monster’s side not _okay_ but _bearable_ – saving Eliot. It was the thought that Quentin clung to when he was alone in his room at night. It was what he held close to his chest when his friends talked about all the ways to destroy the Monster like it wasn’t running around in Eliot’s body. It was what he gripped tightly to when the Monster would smile at him, or pat his shoulder, or touch his neck, looking at him with that too familiar face and those beautiful eyes while he had Quentin help him do the most _horrible_ of things. Things he knew he’d never forget.

The only way Quentin made it through all of that without curling up in a ball and just _shattering_ was by holding on to that hope of saving Eliot and bringing him back home. It was all Quentin had. Julia was going through her own troubles, Margo had a Kingdom to take care of, and there was no one else there that Quentin was close enough to talk to about this. No one who might even begin to understand why Quentin was fighting so hard to bring home his – friend, partner, love, husband – _Eliot_.

But the thing about clinging so tightly to something is that, once it’s gone, what’s left there to hold you up? What’s left to keep you going when the only thing solid is yanked away?

The hope of saving Eliot kept Quentin going through the worst moments of the Monster. It kept him going through murder, and dragons, and every single bad touch he had to endure. It kept him going through the fight at the Library, and the attack on Eliot in the forests. Hearing Eliot’s voice as he lay bleeding on the forest floor – _“Well when you put it so sweetly, Bambi” –_ gave Quentin the strength to gather up the bottles with both Monsters and get to the Mirror Realm.

They made it – by the skin of their teeth, but they did. Quentin almost wasn’t sure he was going to be able to run fast enough once he tossed that bottle in. Somehow he did it, he got to that doorway, and Penny was there to grab his wrist and yank him around the corner. He shoved Quentin and Alice both as they ran faster than they’d ever run before to escape the golden lights that tried to fall after them.

And when they made it, when they collapsed on the other side of the mirror, back in their own realm, it was to find Julia waiting for them.

Quentin stumbled at the sight of her, suddenly so sure it meant bad news. If it weren’t for Penny it was likely Quentin would’ve hit the ground. But the other man was there, subtly catching Quentin’s arm in his, holding him up. Keeping him from falling.

Then Julia smiled. Not one of her everything-sucks-but-we’ll-pretend-it’s-fine smiles that she liked to wear when trying to bullshit Quentin’s broken brain into believing things were okay. It was a real, honest smile. “Eliot’s alive,” she said, as if she knew that Quentin needed to hear those words first. Her smile grew wider. “Lipson performed surgery. He’s still out of it right now, and he’s got a bit of a recovery in front of him, but he’s gonna make it.”

It was like those words cut the last of the strings holding Quentin up. His whole body sagged under the sheer relief that washed through him. The release of a weight that he felt like he’d been carrying for so Goddamn long.

Penny’s grip on him tightened, one arm going around Quentin’s back to catch him on the other side as well, holding him up. Keeping him from melting straight down to the ground. Quentin was so caught up in his own emotions he didn’t think to question it at first. He just closed his eyes and basked in the weightlessness for a moment.

“Can you guys give us a minute?” he heard Penny ask. “We’ll catch up to you.” The hands holding him tightened, and Quentin felt that strange sensation of air and pressure against his skin that came with traveling. That feeling of being squished down and then released once more.

When Quentin opened his eyes, it felt like his breath had been punched out of him.

There, lying unconscious in the hospital bed in front of him, was Eliot.

 _Eliot_.

Not the Monster parading around in his friend’s skin. Not some parody of the person that Quentin wanted him to be. This was actually Eliot. The difference was something Quentin swore he could _feel_ deep down in his marrow. There was none of that tightly coiled energy that seemed to exist in the Monster at all times. No feeling of _wrongness_ that just seemed to radiate from him. This was all Eliot.

As if echoing those thoughts, he heard Penny murmur by his ear. “It’s him. His head’s a bit muzzy from the anesthesia, but it’s all him in there.”

“Thank God,” Quentin breathed out. He took one stumbling step forward, then another, needing Penny’s help more than he’d expected to just to reach Eliot’s bedside. Not that he cared. He took it just so long as it meant he could get there faster. That he was able to reach out and, with trembling fingers, run his hand through the greasy curls on Eliot’s head. It was disgusting, and he knew Eliot would hate it so much. He’d hate the idea of being this poorly groomed.

A small, broken laugh tumbled past Quentin’s lips. “He’s gonna hate this.” The words came out without his intention. Yet once they started, they couldn’t stop. He laughed again while he stroked another curl back from Eliot’s temple. “He got sick once – really sick. It was right after… after Arielle… it scared the hell outta me. And he knew it. He knew how terrified I was. So he… he downplayed the bad stuff, and he played up the rest of it. He could barely breathe between coughs, but he’d lie there in bed and whine at me because he hadn’t washed his hair, or his clothes were wrinkled from sleeping for too long.” He’d played up his usual fastidiousness like it was the only thing that was a big deal about it all. Like it was just a given he was going to be okay, and how dare Quentin let him look anything but his best while he was sick.

Penny gave Quentin a small squeeze. “He wanted to make sure you were okay. The same way you wanted to make sure he was okay now.”

The sound that Quentin made was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Curling his hand, he stroked his knuckles down Eliot’s cheek, over the faint hint of stubble that, if it hadn’t been for the Monster making the decision to wear it, he would’ve loved. It was a throwback to the Eliot only he’d known. The boy who had grown into a man at Quentin’s side. The one who’d helped him raised a son. Who’d _married_ him.

“He’s my husband,” Quentin whispered. He didn’t use the past tense. No matter what happened, no matter what they went through, he would always think of Eliot as _his_. They’d made vows together. Ones that Quentin had promised to uphold. Time travel and coming back to their old life hadn’t changed that. Cupping Eliot’s cheek, he smiled sadly at him. “I buried him once before. I couldn’t do it again.”

“You don’t have to, dude. You did it. He’s here and he’s alive. That’s what matters, right?”

Quentin snuck a look up at Penny from the corner of his eye. “You’re being nice to me.”

“Fuck off,” Penny said. The words lacked his usual bite, though, and he didn’t let go of Quentin. Not entirely. “You forget, dude – the others might not know what’s going on…” He drew back just enough to lift one hand and bring it up, tapping it on Quentin’s temple. “…but I can hear it. Your shields are still shit. You’ve been projecting pretty loudly lately. Especially at night.”

The thought of that had Quentin flinching. He could easily imagine the things that Penny had heard. It explained why he hadn’t reacted at all to anything Quentin had just said. He’d likely heard it all already. Though that didn’t exactly explain why he was being nice about it. Hearing the shit inside Quentin’s head hadn’t ever made the other Penny nicer. It’d made him snap, and shout, and swear, and shove Quentin into trees…

He felt Penny’s hands tighten a little, and when he looked up again, he saw him wincing. “Okay, so yeah, other-me was a bit more of an asshole than I am. But other-you was a lot more of an asshole than this-you, so let’s call it even, all right?”

Quentin felt a ghost of what should’ve been a smile twitch over his lips. It was the best he could manage. “Yeah.” Slowly, blowing out a shaky breath, he looked back down at Eliot. Eliot, who was alive. Eliot, who was going to be okay. They’d done it. They’d saved him. And now that Quentin knew he was here, and okay, and there was nothing to fight anymore… Quentin gave another shaky breath and let himself consciously slump down into Penny’s hold. “As maybe-almost-friends, you think I could ask a favor?”

He should’ve known he didn’t have to. Not with how loud he was apparently thinking lately.

“You sure that’s what you wanna do, man?” Penny asked him. “You don’t wanna stick around until he wakes up?”

Quentin shook his head. He gave himself one last look, one last touch. “No. He doesn’t need me, not for this. He’s got other friends to take care of him, and a kingdom to get back to. He doesn’t need to worry about me.” And he knew that Eliot would. Not that it would change anything – it never did. But at least this way Quentin wouldn’t have to see it. He wouldn’t have to stand back and watch Eliot worry, wishing that it still mattered, that he still mattered the way he wanted to in Eliot’s eyes.

He respected Eliot’s choice here. He’d done his best to honor it, and not push him, not pressure him with things that he’d so clearly said he didn’t want. But Quentin didn’t know if he could keep himself controlled right now. And he didn’t know if he wanted to sit here and watch Eliot come back to himself and pretend the whole time that he was nothing more than the man’s friend. He didn’t want to watch if they brought Fen to see him, and this woman that he respected would get all the privileges that had once been Quentin’s.

Drawing his hand back in, Quentin forced himself to say goodbye, even if there was no one else around to hear it. Then he closed his eyes. “Take me home, Penny.”

There was no one around to see as the two men vanished from sight.


	2. Chapter 2

The world returned slowly for Eliot. He woke in fits and stages. Sometimes there was pain when he woke, like a livewire in his side, and other times it was just a fuzzy sort of thing on the edge of his senses. But that was fine. That was _okay_. Pain meant that this was _real_.

Another constant was Margo. No matter what Eliot woke up feeling, she was always there, always holding on to some part of him or stroking at his face to soothe him back down. She was both sharp and gentle in that way that he’d only ever seen her pull off. At turns _threatening_ and yet _loving_. It was a combination that was pure Margo. Something that not even his memories of her could replicate. Those played off his impressions of her _at that time_. Nothing Eliot could ever imagine or remember could come close to fully replicating the actual Margo.

There was just one thing that was missing. And later, Eliot would be a bit ashamed that it took him three days after he woke up for the first time to figure it all out.

To be fair, he was pretty drugged and drifty during those three days. The fact that he even knew his own name was impressive. Margo had made sure they gave him the good drugs, pointing out his rather impressive tolerance.

Even then there had been a sense of something – _someone_ – missing. Eliot just hadn’t had the brain capacity to piece it all together. Not until he was awake and had managed to actually sit up and eat something instead of being spoon-fed by a nurse whose bedside manner left a lot to be desired.

Eliot being up and awake apparently meant that everyone decided to come and visit him. He was sitting propped up in his bed, only mildly drugged, when everyone came in. And he meant _everyone_. Margo came in first, leading the way with Julia behind her, and then Kady – who was standing awfully close to Julia, and wasn’t _that_ interesting – and Alice, with Penny bringing up the rear. Eliot’s eyes ran over all of them, looking for the one face he’d been waiting to see.

When the door closed behind Penny with no sign of Quentin, a little knot of something that Eliot refused to think of began to build in his stomach.

He pasted on his best smile, pushing everything else down with a skill born of long-time practice. “Well, well, the whole gang gathered together to see little old me. I’m touched.”

“Everyone wanted a chance to see you were alive and feeling less murder-y,” Margo said, dropping herself down onto the bed on his good side. She was careful not to jostle the bed, thank God.

Eliot ran his eyes over the group in a deliberate sweep. Then he lifted his eyebrows. “Clearly not everyone.”

The reaction that got only served to further Eliot’s worry. Margo’s face hardened a little, Alice looked uncomfortable, Kady said nothing, and Julia bit her lip in a clear expression of worry. The only one who didn’t openly react was Penny. He stood still and quiet at the back of the group. When Eliot looked at him, he didn’t flinch, didn’t look worried or angry or guilty. He just met Eliot’s eyes without saying a word, and Eliot knew, he _knew_ Penny knew something.

Without looking away, Eliot voiced the only question that mattered all of a sudden. “Where’s Q?”

He had to give Penny some credit here. The guy didn’t flinch. Nor did he try and lie. He just held Eliot’s eye as he told him: “Gone.”

It was clear no one else had known that. Or that Penny had any sort of answers. As soon as he said it, they were all spinning towards him. Even Margo pushed herself up off the bed to better be able to twist herself to glare at Penny.

“What? Are you kidding me?”

“He’s _what_?”

Everyone was shouting at once. But Eliot only had eyes for Penny. The other man was standing tall and easy underneath everyone’s anger and disbelief. Even when Margo fixed him with a furious stare and loudly demanded, overtop of everyone, “Are you fucking kidding me right now? Coldwater just _bailed_ on us?”

“He’s tired,” Penny said flatly. He wasn’t buckling under the glares that were being sent his way. If anything, they only seemed to make him harden a little until he was giving them a glare that was reminiscent of _their_ Penny. Penny40. “And honestly, he deserves the chance to rest.”

“We’re all tired…” Margo started to say, only to get cut off before she could even get going.

“Yeah, well, none of you went through what he went through.” Those sharp words quieted the room. Penny let his glare run over all of them in a way that had each person shifting around uncomfortably. Eve Eliot. “Seeing as how I’m the only one here that can hear inside of that kid’s head, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of what he went through. And he’s fucking tired, all right? The rest of you guys were in and out for all of this. He’s the only one that got dragged along o the Monster’s magical mystery tour.”

That had Eliot wincing. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was Quentin had gone through. So far, Margo hadn’t really told him all that much of what the Monster had done with his body, and Eliot had honestly been a bit afraid to ask. Now he kind of wished he had. He wished he knew what the Monster had done, what Quentin had been forced to live with.

Alice was the one to ask the question that all of them were no-doubt thinking. “Since when are you two all buddy-buddy?”

“Since pretty much every single one of his other friends seemed to suddenly grow blind and stupid,” Penny snapped back, sneering a little at her. Then his eyes traveled to Eliot’s, and they were hard, full of a kind of threat that not even the other Penny had ever sent Eliot’s way. “And since his _sholsta_ is a fucking idiot who left the nerd with no one else who knows enough to get exactly why the fuck this was so hard for him.”

The words were as sharp as Penny no doubt meant them to be. They cut to the quick, making Eliot flinch. One word more than any other was like getting stabbed all over again, though, only this time in his chest, not his stomach. A word that made it clear just how much Penny knew, and how much Quentin remembered.

 _Sholsta_.

It wasn’t a word that anyone else in here would know or have any _reason_ to know. It wouldn’t mean anything to them. But to Eliot, to the Eliot of the past and the Eliot of now, it meant _everything_.

“His what?” Julia asked. “What on earth is a _sholsa?_ ”

Grief washed over Eliot in waves he had no strength to fight against. He closed his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to look at anyone else. _Coward. You fucking coward._ Before he even realized what he’d intended, he found himself speaking, his voice low and hoarse. “ _Sholsta._ It’s a Fillorian word they use in a little village called Bayar.” Eliot opened his eyes and made himself look at everyone. _You promised you’d be brave. Now’s your chance_. He’d thought that being brave would mean speaking to Quentin, alone, but maybe it meant more than that. Quentin _deserved_ more than that. Eliot lifted his chin and gathered the composure that had once made him a king. “English might be the native tongue in Fillory, but that doesn’t mean that all our words and customs are the same. Royalty uses Earth terms because royalty’s always been the Children of Earth. With the commoners, they have their own words for things. Honestly, it’s rather ingenious. They actually have different titles for each husband or wife in a same-sex marriage. Like _Sholsta_ and _Sholsten_.”

He could see it the instant that some of them began to make the connections. Margo got it first, and her eyes were wide when she turned to face him. Alice was next, and there was a hint of something like grief in her eyes, a realization that something she’d wanted wasn’t hers any longer. Eliot tried to squash the vindictive part of him that wanted to rub it in her face.

“Husbands,” Julia repeated. She, too, looked like she was beginning to understand, but at the same time like she was completely lost. Her eyes went to Penny, who was still glaring at Eliot, and then back over to Eliot. “Wait a second, are you…?”

“Saying that Quentin is my husband?” Eliot finished for her. His tone was far more flippant than he actually felt. “Yes. Yes, I am.” It felt _freeing_ to say those words. To openly claim the most important thing in his life. It felt almost as freeing as when he’d briefly reclaimed his body from the Monster. Like he was taking back a part of himself.

He knew what her next question would be. What all of theirs would undoubtedly be. Before they could ask, he was already answering them. “Q and I got sent back into the past on our quest for the keys. We had to solve the mosaic in the books. Discover the beauty of all life. We lived a life there. Q married Arielle, and he married me, and we raised a family. We had a son. For fifty years we had a life together.”

“But how? I stopped you guys from ever going into the past!” Margo exclaimed.

Eliot shrugged his shoulder. He’d given this a lot of thought – especially while trapped inside his own head – and he still wasn’t sure of the answer. “I don’t know. But we remember it. All of it. And it had to be real in some way. Otherwise, you never would’ve gotten Q’s letter, and Jane never would’ve gotten the key.” Their life had been real. Their _family_ had been real. And Eliot had thrown it all away out of _fear_. Fear that it hadn’t meant the same to Quentin that it had to him. Fear that they’d lose it all once they were back in their own timeline. Fear that circumstances and lack of options had been the spark behind them.

None of that fear mattered now. It wasn’t gone, but Eliot was going to be damned if he let it continue to rule his life. He was going to be _brave_.

Right now Quentin was out there by himself, going through who-knew-what after this entire shit show with the Monster, thinking that he was alone. That he had to me alone. If Eliot knew anything at all about Quentin, he knew the man would be somewhere spiraling deep down inside his head and crashing from the post-adrenaline-quest-crash feeling. He was riding it out _alone_ so that he wouldn’t have to ‘force’ anyone to deal with him like that. And Eliot was betting he wouldn’t be back until he had his feelings firmly under lock and key once more. Until any chance Eliot had with him would be locked away behind walls thick enough no one was going to get past them.

 _Like hell_ if he was going to let that happen!

Eliot grabbed hold of the bed rail with one hand while his other reached out to take hold of the blankets and yank them out of the way. Luckily, the rail on his uninjured side had been lowered down for Margo to sit there earlier. That made it a whole lot easier for Eliot to start shuffling his legs off the side of the bed.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Margo demanded. She twisted, reaching out to push against Eliot’s shoulders in an effort to keep him down in bed.

Much as he didn’t want to fight with her, Eliot couldn’t let her stop him. He brought his free arm up to swipe against hers and knock them off his shoulders. Then, still holding the rail on the other side, he leveraged him upright despite the flash of pain it sent through him. “What do you think I’m doing?”

“You’re in no condition to go haring off after anyone right now!”

“She’s right, Eliot,” Julia said. “Q… Q wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself for him.” She reached out, only to hesitate, clearly not quite sure what to do.

They were a motley bunch of people with a strange patchwork friendship. The only real thing that connected them had been Quentin. He’d been the thread that sewed them together. Without him there, well… Julia and Kady had their friendship, Penny23 had whatever the fuck he had with them as well as a crush on Julia that was a bit painful to see, Alice was mostly on everyone’s shit list, and Eliot and Margo had each other. If they split off, it’d be strange not to see one another, and they might miss one another, but really, they’d move on.

None of them but Margo had a close enough relationship with Eliot to do more than try and voice protests. Margo was the one to stand in front of him once his legs were on the ground. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “I just got you back after you last stupid stunt, you jackass. Like hell if I’m gonna let you go and screw yourself up. You wanna see your boy? Twenty-three can go grab his ass and drag him back here.”

“Uh, no, twenty-three can’t,” Penny said. Margo turned to glare at him next, and he was either brave or stupid because he didn’t back down. “I’m not your fucking taxi, and I’m sure as shit not going and dragging someone back to the one place they don’t wanna be.”

“Oh don’t go acting like you and Q are suddenly the best of friends. You barely even tolerate him,” Margo pointed out sharply.

Penny snorted at her. “Didn’t you listen to anything I said before? I mean, I get that you think I’m just some giant asshole, or you’re projecting your own bullshit or whatever. But like you’re all so fond of telling me, just cause you know the other version of me doesn’t mean you actually know _me_.”

“As cute as this all is,” Eliot interjected, cutting them off before they could really get going. “It’s all a moot point, seeing as how I’m not staying here.” He’d managed to get his feet to the ground while Margo was turned away. Now, he was trying to figure out how the hell he was going to get past the pain enough to start to stand up. His painkillers were holding some of it at bay, but really, he could do with a proper spell to try and patch things up. Unfortunately, there wasn’t going to be time for that. He wasn’t going to wait around for however long it took for them to have the proper amount of ambient to fix him.

He was at least saved from trying to stand by Margo quickly slipping up to his good side. It let him put his arm across her shoulders and put a bit of his weight on her. _Thank fuck_. That allowed him to stand up, even if he had to hunch a little.

Eliot braced his shaking legs and tried to make himself look stronger than he felt. “Will you take me to him?” he asked Penny. Asked, not demanded.

It wasn’t really that surprising when Penny shook his head. Though, he did look kind of regretful about that. “I can’t, man. I’m sorry.”

Yeah, he’d kind of expected as much. That wasn’t going to stop him, though. “Can you take me to the castle, then? A quick look in at the healers, and then I’m sure Fen will loan me a carriage for the rest of the trip.” There was no way in hell he’d be making it on horseback right now.

One corner of Penny’s mouth started to curve up into a grin. He didn’t question how Eliot knew where to go. He just nodded at him. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

Margo let out a heavy sigh. When he looked down at her, she was still glaring, but it was that special one. The one that told him she wasn’t as mad as she was pretending to be. “Let’s at least get you some pants. The last thing the castle needs to see is your ass hanging out in the breeze.”

“They should be so lucky.”

The familiar teasing fell over Eliot and eased just a small part of the knot inside of him. The rest of it, he knew, wouldn’t go away until he had a chance to talk to Quentin. To see him. To finally make some of this _right_. It was one of the promises he’d made to himself while he was trapped in his head, and it was one that he reaffirmed now. He was going to be brave. He was. Quentin had put up with the Monster for months in an effort to save Eliot. The least Eliot could do was put up with a potentially seriously painful carriage ride to go and save Quentin.

He was going to go and get his husband. And then he wasn’t going to let him go for anything.

**Author's Note:**

> I may or may not add more to this. I just thought of this as I woke up this morning and had to write it out. Not beta'd, cause I don't have one. Hope you enjoyed it!


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